Missing Something And Itself Missing

Jaro Varga

28.09.2017 — 22.11.2017

Missing Something and Itself Missing is a subjective and intimate insight by the author – at loss, at absence, gap and the unexplained as constituent principles of the relationship of the real versus the archetypal image of the father. It is an image of power, knowledge, armies, wars, politics, history, legends, cities, libraries, books, schools, forests and borders, it is an image of masculine characters and objects which are to execute a liberation of spirit from matter, as a manifestation of intellect and rationality, as well as expanded consciousness and spirituality. Sun and rain, symbols of division, penetration and pervasion, knives, spears, arrows, phalluses and torches, furs, birds, aeroplanes, light, illumination, lit-up faces, crowns, halos, blinding light, judges, priests, doctors – all this appears as another image of the father which must disappear so it can persevere.

Jaro Varga (b. 1982) is a commentator on creation and destruction. He enjoys seeking out subtle details of what is lost, and systematically looks after what is just being born. Varga explores more than just one field of study. His range of interest encompasses geopolitical topography, the production and archiving of knowledge, social faux pas, and forgotten moments in history. He illustrates the various interconnections between the objects, moments, situations, or places that he finds or consciously seeks out by working with both their form and content.

Jaro Varga is a Slovak visual artist and curator based in Prague. He earned a master’s degree and doctorate from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, and also participated in student exchanges at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw and Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania in the USA. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad, including Where do we go from here? at the Vienna Secession (2010), Public Folklore at the Grazer Kunstverein in Graz (2011), Delete at the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava (2012), Vulnerable Failures at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul (2013), City Diary at the Triangle Arts Association in New York (2013), Dysraphic City at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin (2013), When Artists Speak Truth at The 8th Floor Gallery in New York (2016), Prague Biennale 6 (2013), Bucharest Biennale 7 (2016), In Someone’s Else Dream at SODA Gallery in Bratislava (2017) and many others.

As an artist in residence, Varga has worked at Museums Quartier 21 (Vienna), Futura (Prague), Heppen Transfer (Warsaw), AIR Krems, Center for Art and Architecture ZK/U (Berlin), Triangle Arts Association (New York), and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul), among others. In 2008 and 2010, he was a finalist for the Young Visual Artist Award, in 2015 winner of Tatrabanka Award for Art, in 2017 winner of NOVUM Foundation Prize for contemporary art.

Exhibition supported by the Slovak Arts Council and by the Czech Centre in Bucharest.